In the Assignee's earlier patent applications, U.S. Ser. No. 10/023,674 and U.S. Ser. No. 10/623,893, the entire contents of which are explicitly incorporated herein by reference, the present Assignee described networks in which communications such as bulletin services could be provided from an ISP to a subscriber of the ISP. In the referenced applications, a redirection device was placed in the path of upstream traffic from the subscriber. The redirection device, operating with a consolidating and management device, processed upstream data packets. If the upstream data packet contained a URL page request from a subscriber for whom a bulletin service was pending, the URL page request was redirected to the bulletin server. The bulletin server incorporated the bulletin notification into the URL page requested by the subscriber.
In particular examples provided in the applications referenced above, subscribers of an ISP attempting access to an internet service were provided with notification of potential internet service issues. A further application of providing communications to subscribers includes notifying subscribers of potential virus infections and e-mail spamming such as disclosed in the Assignee's co-pending patent application, U.S. Ser. No. 12/004,634, the entire contents of which are explicitly incorporated herein by reference. A further application of providing communications to subscribers includes notifying subscribers of potential theft of internet service on an unsecured subscriber account, as described in the Assignee's co-pending patent application U.S. Ser. No. 12/004,635, the entire contents of which are explicitly incorporated herein by reference.
More recently, such as in the Assignee's co-pending patent application U.S. Ser. No. 12/340,863 the Assignee has suggested a modification to the redirection process in which the upstream data packets are mirrored or tapped to the redirection device so that the redirection device does not interfere with the upstream traffic and receives only a copy of relevant upstream packets, such as the URL page requests.
While the mirror redirection process provides a more efficient ISP service, problems can occur. Because the router mirrors or otherwise taps the upstream packet stream without affecting the upstream packets, a URL “GET” request will arrive at the intended destination server as well as causing a redirection to the alternative bulletin services server. There is therefore a possibility that a response from the real destination server will intermingle with the redirection response creating a conflict.
What is a required is a system and method that prevents conflicts between responses from alternative web servers.